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"Nami..."
When Nami bolted from the house, Nojiko and Genzo were right behind her.
They followed her to the hill behind the village—to Bell-mère's grave.
In the faint moonlight, Nami's eyes immediately fell upon the blackened skull.
Even charred and broken, she recognized it instantly.
Arlong.
That bastard.
First came the shock. Then, a wave of elation. But it was immediately crushed by a flood of painful memories—a decade of agony churning in her heart.
Nami's head bowed.
Her hand flew to her left arm, covering the tattoo. The physical pain was long gone, but the ache in her heart was as raw as ever.
Her strength gave out, and she collapsed to her knees before Bell-mère's headstone.
Her fingers traced the cold stone.
"Bell-mère!" Nami threw her head back, her voice a raw cry that tore from her throat.
In that single cry, all the pain, all the bitterness of the last ten years, finally broke free. The tears she had held back for so long came pouring out in a torrent of unrestrained grief.
She sobbed, her cries echoing through the quiet grove.
Nojiko and Genzo, who had followed her, slowed their pace as they heard her anguished cries.
They knew.
They knew just how much pain that little girl, with her forced smiles, had been carrying all this time.
Even a grown adult would have likely broken under the strain.
They could never have done what she did.
Genzo's eyes grew moist. He stood where he was, watching in silence.
Perhaps this was for the best. To let it all out.
In that moment, Nami was finally just a fifteen-year-old girl, finally able to cry her heart out in front of her family instead of holding it all in.
Nojiko walked forward. She hadn't been through what Nami had, but she had been fighting her own battle to survive. She knelt and wrapped her arms around her sister.
And they cried together.
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Back in the tangerine grove, Carina was devouring the food like a starving wolf.
Only after she had downed a full glass of tangerine juice did she finally let out a long, satisfied breath.
"You said earlier that a pirate crew was on its way tonight," Jin said. "Which one?"
"It's an alliance," Carina explained. "They were worried they couldn't take on a Fish-Man from the Grand Line by themselves, so several crews joined forces on an island about a two-day sail from here. Nami and I went undercover with one of them and found out about their plan to launch a surprise attack tonight. We stole a boat and came to warn you."
Jin gave a slight nod. That wasn't surprising. The words "Grand Line" still commanded a certain level of respect.
"So, which crews are we talking about?"
Carina eyed them. "You're not scared, are you?"
Scared??
A faint smile played on Jin's lips. Robin and the others looked completely unfazed.
If this were the Grand Line, they might have been a little tense.
But this was the East Blue.
It was clear Jin wasn't afraid. He was sizing up the potential loot.
"We're scared, we're scared!" Jin said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "We're terrified. Quick, list some of the big names. Scare us a little."
Carina and Nami were a team—one a cat burglar, the other a sly fox. Both were sharp as a tack. Nami was clever, but even she had been outsmarted by Carina in the past.
She saw right through him. His words said "scared," but his eyes—they were practically laughing.
The pirates of the East Blue... they're nothing to these people, are they?
"Alright, fine," Carina said. "I'll give you the big names. Mad Treasure. Heard of him? He's a vicious bastard who'll do anything for treasure. He's also a Devil Fruit user."
Jin's eyebrow shot up.
Not bad. A surprise right off the bat.
He remembered now. Mad Treasure was from the Heart of Gold. User of the Paramecia Chain-Chain Fruit. He was also the reason Nami and Carina had gone their separate ways. Five years from now, when they met again, Carina would be the star songstress of Gran Tesoro.
"Who else?" Jin prompted.
"The Trump Pirates," Carina said. "They say they control the East Blue's entire underground arms market. Their captain, Bear King, has a bounty of 11,600,000 Berries. I hear he's a Devil Fruit user, too."
The name was familiar. From the second movie, Clockwork Island Adventure.
The Trump Pirates had taken over an island of clockmakers and forced them to build weapons. Their captain, Bear King, was the user of the Paramecia Hard-Hard Fruit. And his officer, Honey Queen, was the user of the Paramecia Liquid-Liquid Fruit.
The former didn't leave much of an impression.
The latter, on the other hand... she had to take her clothes off to use her ability. A nice figure.
Carina ticked off another finger. "The Black Cat Pirates. Kuro of a Hundred Plans. He's a dangerous one."
Kuro? The boss from Usopp's introductory arc. His "Pussyfoot Maneuver" was pretty impressive in the early days. This was three years before Luffy set out to sea—the exact year Kuro was planning his "retirement."
"The Eldoraggo Pirates. Their captain, Eldoraggo, is obsessed with gold."
Jin smiled faintly.
So he'd managed to draw him out after all.
Still, to get more than one Devil Fruit out of this... it was an unexpected windfall.
"There are also a bunch of smaller crews, ten or twenty men each," Carina added. "A whole mess of different flags I didn't recognize. Most of them are just cobbled-together groups that form one day and fall apart the next. But all together, they've got some numbers. With the ones I mentioned, we're probably looking at over a thousand men."
A pirate alliance of over a thousand?
The crew was surprised.
"Somehow, I don't think this is just about Arlong," Robin mused. "Is there another target?"
"The Krieg Pirates," Carina said. "I heard them talking. They're on their way, too. It was the news that the Krieg Pirates were coming that forced all these smaller crews to team up."
Tashigi's eyes widened. "The Krieg Pirates? That's the largest pirate fleet in the East Blue right now. Their commander, Don Krieg, has fifty ships and over three thousand men. They're a dangerous bunch."
Tashigi couldn't help but worry. When she had learned of Jin's plan to deal with the pirates, she had enthusiastically offered her cooperation.
"Over four thousand pirates?"
Jin, on the other hand, was ecstatic.
It was true what they said: the lone hunter starves.
If you want the real feast, you have to go for the big game.
"So," Carina said, probing, "what's your plan?"
"You'll see when they get here," Jin replied.
"And the gold?" she pressed. "What about the golden treasure?"
"The golden treasure?" Jin smiled. "Isn't it on its way here right now?"
"Huh?"
Carina's mouth fell open. She understood. "This was all a lie?" she said, her voice filled with disbelief.
"A lie? Of course not," Jin said smoothly. "Woonan's treasure is real. It might even be hidden on this island. If you can't find it, that's just your bad luck."
"What?!" Carina was fuming. All this time, all the adventure and hardship she'd gone through with Nami—it was all for the treasure!
And it was all fake?
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